Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/236

 woman: " Who are you, mother, and why are you standing weeping here?" She answered him, " I am the ill-fated wife of him who is here impaled, and I am waiting here with the firm intention of ascending the funeral pyre with him. And I am waiting some time for his life to leave his body, for though it is the third day of his impalement, his breath does not depart. And he often asks for that water which I have brought here, but I cannot reach his mouth, my friend, as the stake is high." When he heard that speech of hers, the mighty hero said to her: " But here is water in my hand sent to him by the king, so place your foot on my back and lift it to his mouth, for the mere touching of another man in sore need does not disgrace a woman." When she heard that, she consented, and taking the water she climbed up so as to plant her two feet on the back of Aśokadatta, who bent down at the foot of the stake. Soon after, as drops of blood unexpectedly began to fall upon the earth and on his back, the hero lifted up his face and looked. Then he saw that woman cutting off slice after slice of that impaled man's flesh with a knife, and eating it.*

Then, perceiving that she was some horrible demon, † he dragged her down in a rage, and took hold of her by her foot with its tinkling anklets in order to dash her to pieces on the earth. She, for her part, dragged away from him that foot, and by her deluding power quickly flew up into the heaven, and became invisible. And the jewelled anklet, which had fallen from her foot, while she was dragging it away, remained in one of Aśokadatta's hands. Then he, reflecting that she had disappeared after shewing herself mild at first, and evil-working in the middle, and at the end horror-striking by assuming a terrible form, like association with wicked men, and seeing that heavenly anklet in his hand, was astonished, grieved and delighted at the same time; and then he left that cemetery, taking the anklet with him, and went to his own house, and in the morning, after bathing, to the palace of the king.

And when the king said— " Did you give the water to the man who was impaled," he said he had done so, and gave him that anklet; and when the king of his own accord asked him where it came from, he told that king his wonderful and terrible night-adventure. And then the king, perceiving that his courage was superior to that of all men, though he was